AP Reporter: Are Obama’s Policies in Syria and Egypt Worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize Winner?

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki curtly replied Thursday to Associated Press reporter Matt Lee that the policies of the Obama administration regarding Egypt and Syria were in fact worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

LEE: All right. And then my last one — and I will stop, I promise, after this — do you think or is the administration confident that the steps — that the policy that you have pursued thus far in Egypt and also in Syria are worthy of a president who not so long ago won the Nobel peace prize?

The administration's response to the Syrian civil war has also been criticized as weak, particularly with regard to so-called "red line" Syria crossed that did not lead to immediate aid to the rebels. It has been nearly two years since Obama demanded President Bashar al-Assad step aside, yet he remains in power and the civil war is destabilizing the Levant.

Obama received the Nobel prize in 2009 for what the committee called his "extraordinary efforts" to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. Given he had been in office less than nine months when the decision was announced, many called it premature.